A Very Short-Lived Cheney Dynasty (II)

I’d like to agree with Gene Healy on this, but it seems a bit far-fetched:

Still, I’d like to see Cheney fight for that Senate seat — and I do mean fight. This race could be the hill (or valley, whatever) that neoconservatism dies on.

It’s a nice thought, but I imagine Healy knows that it wouldn’t work this way. If the Iraq war and the 2006, 2008, and 2012 elections didn’t kill off neoconservatism in the GOP, it is difficult to imagine what could. Compared to ten years ago, neoconservatives have noticeably less influence on the right than they once did, but most Republicans in Washington still follow their lead on foreign policy with depressing regularity. Considering how unpopular military interventions are, it is a bit surprising how rare it is for primary challengers to attack incumbents over their support for hyper-activist and aggressive foreign policy, but if there is going to be a significant change in the party on these issues that is what will have to start happening.

A failed Cheney primary challenge would be amusing to watch, but unfortunately that’s the only value that it would have. This is another reason why the idea of a challenge against Enzi makes no sense: there’s no evidence that I’m aware of that he and Cheney disagree on any major issues. If Enzi were relatively moderate on some domestic issues, or if he were known to be a realist or a skeptic of military intervention, it might make a certain ideological sense for a hard-liner to challenge him, but he is neither of these.

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8 Responses to A Very Short-Lived Cheney Dynasty (II)

I wish Healy were right, but he isn’t for all the reasons Daniel discusses. I’m not a conservative but a liberal, and I can tell you that the neo-con fellow travelers on our side, the so-called humanitarian interventionists, are thriving quite nicely and aren’t even close to being marginalized. It seems that in both parties there are large groups of people who find appealing the notion that (admittedly, for different reasons) we should use violence to reorder the world in ways that are more pleasing to us. I don’t see that changing any time soon, although it would make for a smaller body count if it did.

“Whatever” indeed. Seeing that their special expertise is evading personal danger while getting others to do the dying, the image of neoconservatives “dying on a hill” is jarring. Perhaps Healy meant “The Hill” …

An election in Wyoming will never have implications outside of that state. 99% of non-Cowboy Staters have probably never heard of Mike Enzi.

That said, I think it’s very unlikely that neoconservatism will die so long as Christian Zionism exists in America. There is a segment of evangelical Protestantism that is *obsessed* with Israel; sadly, lots of right-wing Catholics as well. And that isn’t going anywhere.

” It seems that in both parties there are large groups of people who find appealing the notion that (admittedly, for different reasons) we should use violence to reorder the world in ways that are more pleasing to us.”

The aims really are just the same, after all, but with divergent hierarchical consequences for which partisan group gets to be preeminent. The fellow travelers seeking to benefit personally will support elite aims – aims pleasing to their enhancing status of wealth and power. Only if you can identify wholly with such a narrow interest could this be considered “we.”

Not sure how neo-conservatism can be losing influence when the GOP follows them so much on follow policy. I have yet to see anything that can be called neoconservative domestic policy. It’s a school of politics that has no connection to domestic politics whatsoever.

After a long-time living in the West & short-time in Wyoming, all politics is local here as anywhere. Cheney vs Enzi would be a generational battle within the Wyoming GOP, more than a proxy for outside interests.